FIRST things first: Seasons greetings to all who read my weekly rant. Or, as a Nigerian cab driver told me years ago when he dropped me off home after Christmas and got the seasonal baksheesh, “Merry Christmas in arrears and advance happy New Year to you sir.”
Nigerian English is great fun and I could go on, but it is Christmas time and that’s great fun too. It begins from the middle of November and reaches a climax on Christmas Day, when the fun fizzles out abruptly the very next day.
The dictator Oliver Cromwell, or Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Ireland and Scotland, if you prefer, banned Christmas for a while because people were having too much fun. But he was a puritanical Roundhead and a bore; worse even than the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, the old curmudgeon in Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol,’ who at least redeems himself in the end.
Some people say Charles Dickens created Christmas as we know it and there may be some truth in the claim. I remember a memorable staging of ‘A Christmas Carol’ as a student play at the American Academy when I was there in the 1960s and was pleasantly surprised how accurate the depiction of Christmas was after I came to England.
At the American Academy we also exchanged Christmas cards and sang the usual carols like ‘O Come all ye Faithful and ‘Silent Night’, whether we were believers or not.
No one seemed to mind – my father who was a secular old Turk in the Ataturk mould didn’t mind at all and thought of carols as great choir songs.
Cromwell’s ban on Christmas was lifted in 1660. The dictatorship of the puritans did not last long and the monarchy was restored with relative ease.
It was a bit rum to ban Christmas though truth to tell, I prefer the calm between Christmas and New Year. London has a bit of a morning-after-feel to it after Christmas.
People seem tired of excess after the big day. Their bank accounts depleted, they just want a bit of peace and quiet to gather their thoughts and reflect on the year about to end and contemplate the one to come.
As for me, I love driving around London between Christmas and New Year. The place is deserted and there is little traffic, although as London is a multi-ethnic metropolis there are pockets of the usual hustle and bustle of city life here and there.
This year I drove to Green Lanes, Haringey home to many Cypriots, Turks and Kurds, and went for a shop at Yasar Halim’s – an authentic Cypriot grocery shop that evokes memories of old Cyprus – a bit like the old markets I used to know as a child.
Greek and Turkish Cypriots flock to this shop where they exchange pleasantries in Greek and Turkish. The Turkish woman at the counter greets a female customer in Greek with Xronia Polla; for her part, she chooses from the bakery and uses Turkish numerals followed by the obligatory tane to enumerate her items of purchase.
I know the area around Green Lanes Haringey well as I worked in a law centre there between 1975-1977, giving advice to Cypriot refugees threatened with deportation, along with my friend Hasan Balman, who recommended my employment at the centre.
For me a drive to Haringey at this time of the year is a trip down memory lane, which is good for the soul, especially as this year I went there with my daughter.
Many Cypriot refugees who came to London after the 1974 war were threatened with deportation and removal to Cyprus on the grounds that the situation in Cyprus had settled down and they were reasonably expected to return after hostilities died down.
Our usual defence against deportation was that it was not reasonable to expect them to return as they could not return from whence they came, but the immigration authorities were not persuaded of this argument.
Still one way or another most were allowed to remain in the end and many have done extremely well for themselves and their families.
However, some did return of their own volition in accordance with the natural ebb and flow of refugee migration – basically people seek refuge when their country is unable or unwilling to protect them and return when circumstances change and they feel safe to return.
So all the shrill demands to shut the long suffering Syrian refugees out of Europe and the cynical manipulation of their plight by populist leaders is xenophobic nonsense done for political gain.
As Pope Francis said in his “Urbi et Orbi” – to the city and the world – Christmas message, “It is injustice that makes them cross deserts and seas that become cemeteries. It is injustice that forces them to endure unspeakable forms of abuse, enslavement of every kind, and torture in inhumane detention camps. It is injustice that turns them away from places where they might have hope for a dignified life, but instead find themselves before walls of indifference
If it were up to me, I would nominate Pope Francis for the Nobel Peace Prize, except that judging from the film ‘Two Popes,’ about him and Pope Benedict XVI, he would probably not accept. Alas it is not up to me.
Apparently, the powers that be have already nominated the European Court of Human Rights for the Prize, which cannot be serious, and given that Cyprus is sometimes a defendant state in proceedings before the court, may even fall foul of the principle that requires the court to be and appear to be impartial.
Memories of old Cyprus in London on a cold and rainy morning after Christmas made me momentarily melancholic so I bought five different types of Cypriot bread including cheese and olive bread and headed for another exotic locality.
Stamford Hill is around the corner from Green Lanes, in Haringey. My daughter lives in Stamford Hill and I drove her back after Christmas. It is home to London’s Hasidic Jewish community and is evocative of old Central Europe before the lunatics took over the asylum in Central Europe.
The Hasidic Jews are visible by their style of dress and appearance – long black coats, black hats and beards for men and modest long clothes for women – and are very conspicuous in Stamford Hill at all times.
One fascinating piece of useless information my old friend and fellow barrister the late Panikos Zorbas, who had a house in Stamford Hill, told me before he died is that the barber with the unique expertise to cut hair and form side locks in the Hasidic way in Stamford Hill is a Cypriot.
Happy New Year.
Alper Riza is a queen’s counsel and a part time judge in England
